[El Gato]

unConstitutional state laws... unless you were perfectly happy with Jim Crow laws.

Jim Crow laws were what the 14th amendment was about, well part in question anyway. The question here is twofold, is privacy one of the "liberties", or "priveleges and immunities" that states are not allowed to violate (without due process in the case of liberties) which leads to the second question of whether such privacy extends to acts of sodomy, or merely to enforcement actions. My read is that "privacy" isn't about what can or can not be made illegal, but rather about enforcement actions. Even the privacy, such as it is, of being "secure in one's person, house, papers and effects", protected by the 4th amendment is only secured against unreasonable searches and seizures. It does not protect any an all actions taken in private. The only possible place to find a right of privacy is in the 9th amendent, but to find one there, and one that protects private sexual conduct at that, one would have to submit some evidence that such a right was recognized at the time of adoption of the 9th amendment.. and that would be a tough row to hoe, IMHO. It would be a lot easier to find a right to smoke pot or opium in private, or even in public, in the 9th amendment, since such things weren't, for the most part, criminalised until the 20th century in most places.

All this is not to say that the states aren't free to put privacy, even sexual privacy, rights into their state constitutions, or even merely pass laws to protect, or recind laws against, such acts.

[tpaine]

Even the privacy, such as it is, of being "secure in one's person, house, papers and effects", protected by the 4th amendment is only secured against unreasonable searches and seizures. It does not protect any an all actions taken in private.

The only possible place to find a right of privacy is in the 9th amendent, but to find one there, and one that protects private sexual conduct at that, one would have to submit some evidence that such a right was recognized at the time of adoption of the 9th amendment..
and that would be a tough row to hoe, --
-El Gato-



"A right to live unmolested" was well known to the founders:

__ The great lawyer of the [Puritan] period, Sir Edward Coke, made it a maxim that the common law was the embodiment of reason; -- it followed that judges must not only give reasons for their decisions, but must use reason to iron out the kinks created by bad cases…. "Nature is the twin of reason in that both are given: man is the reasoning animal by nature, and nature is what man finds ready-made to be reasoned about. It acts apart from his will and wishes. Natural law and natural rights seem plain when one argues about fundamentals;

for instance, that every human being has a right to live unmolested,

that government is needed to ensure that right, and that man-made laws must serve and not defeat natural rights.
If any civil law does work against a natural right, the law of nature warrants disobeying the law and even overthrowing the government."

"These reasonings are familiar to those who remember the preamble to the Declaration of Independence…."